Revenue recovery and administration management
Description/Objective
Many DRT schemes have additional administrative requirements over and above what is normally needed for fixed-route transit. The main reason is that many DRT schemes either provide dedicated parallel transit for people who have difficult to use fixed-route transit; or they are general service DRT schemes that are reimbursed for trips made by certain categories of passengers.
Some of the specific administrative requirements which need to be handled are:
- The scheme may receive payment per mile/kilometre operated, or per additional distance operated for off-route request by eligible customers. If the DRT scheme crosses administrative boundaries, it may be necessary to disaggregate the travel by administrative district. The CAD/AVM system calculates the eligible distance, and classifies by category if necessary.
- The scheme may receive payment per passenger mile/kilometre for eligible passengers, perhaps priced differently by passenger type. The CAD/AVM system or the Traveller Assignment application collates the data and calculates the eligible distances and associated fares/reimbursement.
- Different categories of passengers may be sponsored by different agencies. The ITS system may have to segregate the trip, patronage or distance data by passenger type or sponsor.
- The sponsor may require detailed trip records for each passenger for which payment is requested.
- The sponsor may require transaction records to demonstrate the eligibility of each passenger for which payment is requested.
The administrative system for the DRT may also need to carry out more general reporting, billing and accounting, especially if there is not a general MIS system within the transit entity to perform those functions.
Technologies, data and resources
The revenue recovery and administrative schemes are not ITS systems in themselves, but they depend on the records generated by the ITS systems. Quite often the applications are included in the overall DRT software package.
Advantages and Cautions
The primary advantages of Revenue recovery and administration management are to:
- Generate, collate and process the specific data required by sponsors of the DRT scheme
- Minimise the administrative burden, while ensuring compliance with the requirements of the sponsors
The principal cautions in relation to Administration applications for DRT are:
- Administrative software can be time consuming and costly to develop and validate.
- The administration software provided with the DRT software may have limited capability, or might not satisfy the needs of sponsors. This needs to be determined at an early stage.
Relevant Case Studies
Prince William County